£3,800 phone bill shock for holiday teen

A GIRL of 14 ran up a £3,800 mobile phone bill by using Facebook on holiday

Casey Snook used the website to post updates about her dream break in New York with her mother Kate.

She eagerly told friends about trips to the Empire State Building, Central Park and Times Square and uploaded a series of pictures with her iPhone.

She was unaware of the debt until her father Victor’s bank account, from which the phone bill is paid, went overdrawn after the holiday.

Phone company Orange said she ran up the charges by using Facebook with data roaming, a service which enables internet access abroad.

Mrs Snook, 43, a catering assistant, accused the company of “extortion”.

She said: “When I heard about it I felt physically sick.

“Casey was very upset and embarrassed and I was in tears. I can’t believe that a company would let a bill which is usually £50 get up to that level. Did they not worry the phone had been stolen?

“She was only using it for the normal teenage stuff, updating her friends with what she was up to and this and that.”

Casey, of Hengrove, Bristol, flew to the Big Apple with her mother on May 27.

Four days into the trip the teenager received a text warning her she had gone over her internet data limit – and her bill had gone from its usual £50 to £320.

I can’t believe that a company would let a bill which is usually £50 get up to that level. Did they not worry the phone had been stolen?

Mrs Snook

The company barred Casey from sending more text messages or making calls – but did not block her data roaming.

Mrs Snook told Casey to stop using her phone until they returned to Britain two days later. But once the family got home Mrs Snook received a phone call from Casey’s father to say his bank had told him he was overdrawn.

Orange insists it sent several warning texts to Casey to say she had exceeded her data usage.

But Mrs Snook said her daughter does not remember this.

She said: “This is about the extortion of a 14-year-old and Orange is refusing to budge on the bill.

“The rates charged are ridiculous but we are just going to have to pay it.”

An Orange spokeswoman said: “We know our customers want to use their smartphones while on holiday without the worry of a big bill at the end. That’s why we offer a number of services, such as roaming bundles, which allow travellers to use data overseas and control the cost.

"All Orange customers have a number of protections in place - customers are even automatically opted-in to a roaming data cap which limits their charges to £49 for a set amount of data. Customers receive warning texts to alert them of their data usage and we have an app that helps them monitor data usage, and opt in to a data bundle if needed.

"In this instance the customer received numerous text alerts which updated them on the roaming costs for the USA, and also updated them on their data usage. Once they had reached the limit of their data bundle, the customer actively opted out of our roaming data cap so that they could continue to use data, effectively removing the inbuilt protection from large data roaming bills.”